Greta's brow furrows as he looks up at her, his expression haunted. Jack's never looked like that before. He and the Girl both seemed to recover from the whole ordeal with comparative ease. There were occasional sad spells, of course, but they'd tapered off as time went on. Why should he be having troubles now?
Is she forgetting something?
She crosses back to the table, slow and uncertain, feeling his forehead for fever again before pushing her hand up through his hair, a gesture that should feel familiar and instead feels experimental. Should she be doing this? There's a lingering echo of the worry that Jack's getting too old for such active mothering, but there's something else, too. A concern, growing into a conviction, that she's got it all wrong, somehow.
How can it be wrong, though? Everything's just as it should be. They're all here, everyone's healthy and as happy as can be wished. Except for Jack, looking up at her as if he knows things too terrible to speak of, as if he's just returned from a war.
As if he's not Jack at all, or not anymore, because when would her Jack have looked at her like this?
Not that Jack was ever hers to begin with.
Greta's stomach drops, and she jerks her hand back as if she's been burned. "Oh," she says foolishly, glancing around the kitchen and then back down to the boy in the chair. She's forgotten everything, but it's coming back to her, now. Maybe if he'd been standing in a different sort of market, she would have caught on, sooner. But he was here, and she'd just... she'd just wanted...
She sits down heavily in the nearest chair and buries her face in her hands. "I--I'm so sorry."
no subject
Is she forgetting something?
She crosses back to the table, slow and uncertain, feeling his forehead for fever again before pushing her hand up through his hair, a gesture that should feel familiar and instead feels experimental. Should she be doing this? There's a lingering echo of the worry that Jack's getting too old for such active mothering, but there's something else, too. A concern, growing into a conviction, that she's got it all wrong, somehow.
How can it be wrong, though? Everything's just as it should be. They're all here, everyone's healthy and as happy as can be wished. Except for Jack, looking up at her as if he knows things too terrible to speak of, as if he's just returned from a war.
As if he's not Jack at all, or not anymore, because when would her Jack have looked at her like this?
Not that Jack was ever hers to begin with.
Greta's stomach drops, and she jerks her hand back as if she's been burned. "Oh," she says foolishly, glancing around the kitchen and then back down to the boy in the chair. She's forgotten everything, but it's coming back to her, now. Maybe if he'd been standing in a different sort of market, she would have caught on, sooner. But he was here, and she'd just... she'd just wanted...
She sits down heavily in the nearest chair and buries her face in her hands. "I--I'm so sorry."